Hearts
by St. Aelphaba
Summary: "In Dreams" and "Paradox" - two short stories set in the same universe, very soon after the series one finale. Maybe this regeneration was made just for her. Rose/Doctor.
1. In Dreams

A/N: AU and unbeta'd, so let's see how this goes.

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><p>He's stroking bits of his TARDIS again, and it's driving her mad.<p>

He rarely did this in his previous regeneration. He is so much more tactile now – with her – with everything. His hands, once strong but hesitant, are now firm and limber and perfectly sized to fit into hers. It's as if this regeneration was made to drive her perfectly crazy. Maybe it's her fault. Maybe she did this to him when she looked into the heart of the TARDIS. Maybe it happened when he kissed her – maybe she left a permanent imprint on him. Maybe this regeneration was made just for her.

It certainly is not helping her in her current state. He's muttering and stroking the TARDIS, touching it tenderly and whispering to it. He closes his eyes as if he can hear and feel the TARDIS, and she knows that he can. She's heard him talk about a mental connection to the TARDIS. She's seen proof of how alive the TARDIS is.

Sometimes she thinks the TARDIS creeps into her dreams, connecting them. She thinks that she – the TARDIS – knows that their timelines are permanently interwoven, and takes some of the blame for it. She wonders if the TARDIS has conscious thoughts, or if her humming is all omniscient sub- or semi-conscious.

She'll ask the Doctor. If he ever stops stroking the TARDIS and driving her mad. Which is he doing right now.

She wonders if he _knows_ the effect this has on her. How she watches his nimble fingers tuning the buttons on the TARDIS console, his hands sliding along her smooth surface. This image should be a laugh, and sometimes is. She watches his lips move silently, knows that she would hear impossibly quiet Gallifreyan if she were closer. It makes her shiver. It drives her mad. His hands could do that to her. His mouth could be whispering softly to her, speaking of the stars and the suns that were no longer, claiming her in a language she almost understood. He could be doing all of that.

Sometimes the image of the Doctor touching the TARDIS so intimately _does_ make her laugh. He's a caricature of himself sometimes, but she loves him all the more for it. Sometimes his quirks amuse her.

Other times, they arouse her.

She hears Gallifreyan at night, in her sleep. It comes from the inside, but not from her; where would she have heard it? She understands every word in her dreams and can speak back. She speaks with the Doctor, speaks with people who no longer exist, even people who never existed. She sees Gallifrey, feels the warmth of its suns, stands under the beautiful red sky. She takes the Doctor's hand, kisses him, feels him stroking bits of her the way he strokes the TARDIS. She feels their bodies interweave the way their timelines do, complex and constant and constantly moving, hands and fingers and bodies and sighs and whispers.

When she wakes up, she doesn't remember what they are whispering. She remembers the intimacy and the feeling of his rough skin on hers. She remembers the feeling of him in her, moving against her. She remembers his words but not their meaning. She knows that he whispers things that he has never said to her outside of the dream world, things she wishes he would say. Things she wishes _she_ could say.

She knows that she shares these dreams with the Doctor. She watches him touching the TARDIS and can almost feel his hands on her skin again.

He looks away from the console, sensing her staring at him. He looks her hard in the eyes and she squirms under his gaze. Can he read her thoughts? Can he tell she's remembering the tender version of him she is only allowed to see in her dreams, in his dreams? Can he hear her heart beating, see or smell how aroused she is?

She stays transfixed, lost in his eyes. She can almost read _his_ thoughts. She sees Gallifrey's burning suns reflected in his eyes, sees their bodies burning together under them, twisted and entangled and interwoven and intertwined. She sees him losing his world and gaining nothing but her. She sees his hesitation toward her, his inability to give to her what she receives in his dreams.

She steps toward him, crosses the room between them, fills in the empty space with her presence. His hand is still resting on the TARDIS console, and then it's in her own hand, and she fixes their fingers together the way she wants to fix this moment in time. She stands on tiptoe to rest her forehead against his and a barrier breaks. It's as if she's dreaming now, dreaming enough for the thoughts and memories to come pouring in and she knows just what to do, just what to say. She guides his hands to her waist and then slides her own hands all the way up his arms and cups his face gently, her fingers resting on his temples. Feelings pour into her – his feelings. She lets him see hers. His hesitance mixes with her sureness. He matches her with his fears and she shares her own, so very different from his and still so very real. She gives him her love, coaxing him to give her his. Slowly, he complies. Bit by bit he unravels. He is still hesitant as he lowers his head and meets her lips with his for the first time in his new body.

The kiss is soft and tentative until she allows him to feel what she feels. Suddenly his arms are wrapped around her, their bodies pressed together, as the Doctor rushes every thought and feeling into her mind, screaming panic and relief at the same time. She brings him down, softens the kiss, calms his body and mind. Finally she pulls back her face but keeps her hands in contact with his temples, intent on letting him know _everything._ His hands are slowly stroking her waist over her shirt. His eyes, not the only visible (or, rather, tangible) sign of his arousal, are a darker brown, but she still sees some fear in them.

She pours more calm, more happiness into him. Her giving is no loss. She receives the sound and feel of his uneven heartbeats slowing down, evening up. She smiles at him, allows him to return the smile. She stands on tiptoe once more, her mouth moving to his ear.

She whispers two words. Just two words, and they have nothing to do with the end of the universe this time, or at least, she hopes not. His body tenses and relaxes once more before he lets his fears fade. She feels excitement creep into his body, feels it in her own. He laughs.

"Rose Tyler, what have you done?"

She's done what she can, she's done more than was possible. When she looked into the heart of the TARDIS, she saw impossibilities, and though she remembers nothing of them, she knows that she took them and made them hers. Her heart, though still singular, is beating more slowly than a human's should, closer to the speed of the Doctor's hearts. She feels an energy in herself that she had never felt before the Bad Wolf, a natural but alien energy. She will never be Time Lord, but she has molded herself as best she could.

She whispers those two words in his ears again. He whispers them back, his voice heavy with their emotions combined.

The words are barely translatable, stronger and surer than anything her human tongue is supposed to be capable of. The Gallifreyan language twists itself around her tongue; she can barely help it once the words begin to spill out. _I love you._ Two words in Gallifreyan, even heavier with meaning. Together they whisper the things that, up until now, they have only been able to whisper in the dreams they share.

The TARDIS hums quietly around them.

Four hearts are pounding together here tonight.

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><p>AN: Thanks for reading. Only one more chapter coming up. Please review.


	2. Paradox

A/N: I'd like to address any readers or reviewers who were displeased with chapter one. I'm fine with the fact that you don't like my story or the writing style I used in this. Fanfiction is escapist fantasy, and this story is purely that. I wish the show had taken a TimeLady!Rose course, but obviously it didn't and it really couldn't have. That's okay. That's what fanfiction is for. Thank you for the kind reviews, to those of you who left them.

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><p>She's a paradox.<p>

He isn't supposed to be able to stand her. He's supposed to want – to need – to fix her. Or get away from her, run at all costs.

But, as love goes, he won't. He's too selfish, too selfless. He would risk universes for her, he thinks sometimes. That isn't supposed to be how he thinks.

She's a paradox. The way she made him fall in love with her. The way she let him let her in, let him love her. The way she takes his every rational thought away. The way she takes his breath away.

And her very existence now. She's a paradox of her own accord. She brought this on herself. She looked into the heart of the TARDIS and she chose the long path, a long life. A long life with him.

He will never forgive her.

He will never be able to thank her enough.

She knows this, he thinks. Their dreams are still connected, though they no longer need the TARDIS to keep them there. Nowadays they sleep in the same bed. Her skin is now cooler than he is used to, though still warmer than his. He wonders why, in the past few weeks since his regeneration (and, in a way, hers), he hadn't noticed before. She's been semi-immortal for a while, semi-Time Lord. He's always too busy being caught in the moment, thinking on his feet. He hasn't got enough time to notice the temperature of Rose Tyler's hand in his.

Now he notices. He notices every difference. He loves every difference, even though it's against his nature. He is supposed to abhor her, a paradox.

He hasn't yet explored every difference. He has kissed her, he has felt her heartbeat slowly pounding, he has heard her speak a language that should be lost. In the past few days they have been sleeping together, but only _together_ in the same bed. He has not yet discovered the quirks of her almost-human body, what makes her moan, what makes her writhe.

He kisses her now, feels the heat of her lips touching his, her tongue touching his, her teeth biting his bottom lip in that way that drives him mad. He strokes her waist over her shirt. She pulls back and places his hands under her shirt demandingly. His Rose.

He discovers more differences in the coolness of her skin here, placing hesitant feather-light touches on her stomach. She shivers and giggles a little. She's ticklish. This makes him smile. He discovers more about Rose – not only what makes her more Time Lord, but what makes her human – gliding his hands along the curves of her stomach upward and listening to her breathing quicken. He reaches her breasts and hesitates once more until he looks up and sees her glaring at him.

"Stop questioning it," she says. Her voice echoes through the console room. He laughs quietly before cupping her in his hands, marveling at how warm they are. She shivers, feeling his cool palms through her bra. He looks into her eyes once more, stops questioning, unhooks her bra, slides her shirt up over her head. Lets her bra fall to the ground. _Oh_. His Rose.

She is a beauty even as she tries to cover herself, still shivering, and he stops her. He removes his jacket and loosens his tie before her hands take over on his shirt buttons and soon that is discarded, too, and they are matched. She runs her hands across his chest, thumbs his nipples, and _oh,_ he didn't realize he liked that so much. She likes it too; he can tell. She does it again to elicit the same reaction from him, biting her lip at the sound of his moan. He can smell her growing arousal, and it smells different than the previous hints of it he's gotten before. Part of it, he realizes, could have to do with the fact that this is a new body, and everything smells different. He wonders just how much Rose has changed herself.

She's a paradox, how beautiful she is and yet how insecure she seems in this moment, still trying to cover her body. He removed her arms from around her breasts and replaces them with his hands, watching how her head tosses back in pleasure, how she lets out a soft sigh. He kisses the corner of her mouth to taste the sigh, then leaves another kiss lower, on her collarbone. She sighs again, her head coming forward to greet his as he comes back up to kiss her once more on the lips.

His hands leave her breasts and trail downwards to her hips, playing with her waistband. She is playing with his hair, running her fingers through it, tugging gently at it. _Oh._ He likes that sensation too. Everything seems so much more sensitive under her touch.

His shirt is long forgotten on the floor but his tie remains, and she does nothing about it. It rests at the sensitive skin below his navel, brushing against the hairs there. As she presses her body closer to his, the friction of his tie against his skin increases. How can something so simple be so arousing?

She isn't shivering anymore when her hands reach down and cup his bum. _Oh. That._ He grips his hands against her hips as she squeezes. He grinds into her, feels more friction between them. _Yes._ His hands make quick work of her jeans' buttons, pull down, and free her of all clothing, but his trousers are too tight. He needs out of them _now._ Especially as he looks down at her body, pink and yellow and perfect. She's a paradox, truly impossible in how exquisite she is. He hopes he can tell her this in words she will be willing to hear and understand. Her body doesn't ever need to be covered up by her self-conscious hands. She is _beautiful._

They're standing in the console room, her trousers and pants at her ankles, his own being unbuttoned by her deft fingers. He thinks that it's ironic because this room is where it all started. Where she took it upon herself to become his forever. Where his barriers began to come down.

He doesn't spend too much time dwelling on it, though, because soon he is free of all clothing - save for the tie. He sighs as she gasps; his was of relief and hers of pleased surprise. He hopes his equipment matches that of a human's well enough; he hasn't done this in years.

She steps back and his pulse quickens. Is she running? Is he all wrong?

She smiles at him. A good sign. She grabs his wrists and pulls him close to her again, only to push him away. His back hits the TARDIS console. _Oh._ She – oh.

Her body rejoins his, pressing into him. He can feel her curls against his leg, and then she hooks one leg around his and he feels how _wet_ she is. _Oh._ He flinches involuntarily, not of discomfort but of arousal. Right now the two are almost one and the same.

He gives her his hands, rests them on her head, places his fingers on her temples. He gives her himself, his feelings now, and she gives hers. He groans. Love and lust and want and need multiplied under her influence. They feed each other; create mental friction to rival the physical feeling of her against his leg, him against her stomach. He needs her so much more now, and she needs him, and he needs her even more and he needs it to stop but he never wants it to end.

He wants to know what she wants and she gives him an image right away and they both inwardly moan as he complies, parting her legs with one hand and feeling her, truly feeling her for the first time. His finger flicks what she tells him is right, and he feels it too. Now he can't stop. He adds his thumb to the mix, curling one finger inside her – no, two, please, yes, that, she tells him – and flicking her outside with his thumb. He is so lost in her feel, in her feelings, in her smell, in her sounds. He can feel her climax impending and realizes that it will be his, too. He tries to stop, but he can't and he doesn't want to and she doesn't want him to, and then _oh, oh, yes, oh. Oh._

Pleasure is amplified as they continue feeding off each other and he distantly wonders if they could stay like this for the rest of time. He doesn't pull away, keeps giving her himself and receiving her in return. Over and over he comes, and she comes, and they haven't even started yet. _Oh,_ he wants even more than this, and this already feels like all the universe's pleasures combined. He has no sense of time in this moment, only a sense of her and a sense of himself. This moment is a paradox, but he cannot abhor it.

He doesn't know how he is able to gain control enough to pick her up and wrap her legs around his waist, but that is where she ends up, her wetness teasing him, and though they are still coming and still feeling, he needs more; he needs everything the universe can give him. He eases into her and they are a perfect fit, _oh, oh,_ this is almost too perfect. This _is_ too perfect, an absolute paradox, but he cannot fight it. She moves into him, deeper, closer, their minds still connected, all sensation and feelings. This is more than he could have ever imagined, more than he could dream even with the aid of the TARDIS and Rose's imagination, which he now knows to be quite vast as he watches mental images of what else they will do together fly through his mind.

They could keep going and never stop, but they won't. They come together continuously as she moves around him, squeezes him in ways that drives him mad. He tries to calm them down together and she joins in the effort, knowing it will take much of it. Her moans quiet as she bites down on his shoulder, still moving into him but more slowly, and he tries to tell her to stop biting his shoulder but he can't. With much effort, the two slowly close their climax off, building their mental connection down rather than tearing it. He sends her calm and she tries to magnify it with her own and send it back. Arousal is still mixed in, but it becomes manageable. Finally, she collapses against him, slides her legs down his body, panting. They are unable to speak, to form words, so they give each other their feelings instead. He can't help but feel her excitement, and she shares his amusement in how absolutely _amazing_ that was.

"That's going to take a bit more practice," he says finally, meaning that they will need to learn to build their connection down more quickly so they can make love without being physically unable to stop.

"Not bad for a first go," she says, giving him her smile. He knows she means that it was brilliant, and he agrees, although brilliant isn't the word. There isn't a word.

They have been making love for three hours. He remembers every second of it but has no idea how the time disappeared and passed as if he was inside of it rather than outside, watching it tick by, as he usually is. She is going to be sore in the morning, and he probably will be, too. It doesn't matter right now.

He kisses her and grins, whispers those two Gallifreyan words to her once more. She whispers them back with absolute ease, an impossible feat for a human.

She is a paradox.

He doesn't care.

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><p>AN: So there's your escapist fantasy of the day. Wouldn't it be nice if this is how sex actually worked?

There _probably_ won't be a chapter three. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, and again, please review...although I should probably add this time that while I appreciate critique and constructive criticism, if you don't have _anything_ nice to say, don't say anything at all. ;)


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